A Definitive Ruling on the Bradley Beal Travel Seen ’Round the Internet

NBA refs insist they didn’t miss what appeared to be an obvious travel in Monday’s Wizards-Pistons game. Are they right?

On Monday night, the Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons faced off in a professional basketball game. The final score of the contest between these two middling Eastern Conference teams does not matter. But the action did feature a pivotal moment—a broken play—which appears to have radically redefined what constitutes a travel in the eyes of NBA officials. It occurred in the fourth quarter, when Wizards guard Bradley Beal did this:

For those of you counting at home, Beal took something like five steps, which is three more than what is allowed. This rules violation was clear to everyone in the stands, to the Pistons bench, and to Beal himself, whose facial expression after step three is very much "Oh shit, whoops." (He sarcastically acknowledged as much afterward.)

One constituency, however, has steadfastly maintained that Beal did not travel: NBA referees. They did not make the travel call in real time, which, fine, who cares. Mistakes happen! But their defense in the incident's aftermath—a ratio'd thread in which they have committed to the strategy of Tweeting Through It—is far more troubling.

Let's be clear about the stakes here. With this ruling, NBA referees have ripped a hole in the basketball space-time continuum. Michael Jordan lost to the Monstars and is toiling away on Moron Mountain. Manu Ginobili is right-handed. Magic Johnson physically recoils at the word "tampering." Ben Simmons can shoot. It's bleak.

NBA travel truthers are bottom-tier basketball viewers who lack the imagination required to see how a wonky-looking Eurostep is cool, legal, and a prime example of the world's best basketball players stretching the limits of what previous generations thought possible. (Members of this group are rivaled only by Kobe fans in their dogged insistence on being annoying and wrong all the time.) Beal's maneuver is absolutely not travel-truther fodder, though. It's a legitimate and obvious screw-up, and by instead citing an obscure "fumble" rule that surely dates to James Naismith's peach-basket days, NBA refs are giving fans legitimate grounds for pooh-poohing. The refs are also inviting prospective rule-pushers to "fumble" their way through any sticky situation in the future, and I shudder to think about the first time someone invokes this instance in a pickup game to justify their 19-step gather.

We don't need some erudite explanation that redeems what we saw with our own two eyes. Bradley Beal traveled. This is Adam Silver's David Stern–blocking-the–Chris Paul–trade moment: He needs to completely overstep his bounds, but this time for a genuinely good cause. Call a technical foul on the NBA referees, tell us we haven't lost our collective minds, and restore some sense of order to the universe. Michael Jordan's future depends on it.